Ethereal - A game about Life and Death
Based on the true story of my own father’s life and death, Ethereal follows the protagonist through seven of his most traumatic memories. Hidden throughout each memory are mementos that help him let go of the past and move on.
Through the memories, you learn about the protagonist’s life, seeing his worst days and helping him remember the good.
The game has multiple endings based on the player’s level of completion at the end of the 7th and final memory.
Other spirits wander his memories, confused, angry or sad, searching for their place in the afterlife. Hellhounds wander the memories waiting for the right moment to grab the player and drag him down to hell!
Throughout the game’s seven worlds, the player must solve puzzles using his seven abilities and the help of other spirits. Along the way, he must avoid hell hounds lest he be dragged through a hell void!
Though its not a multiplayer game, we can use Discord to communicate with our friends to check who finishes the game first or help each other to finish the game.
Abilities
At the start of each world a new ability is added to your arsenal. As your arsenal grows, the puzzles adapt. This will keep the game feeling fresh and challenging without frustrating the player by becoming overly complex.
In Ethereal, there is no jumping. Instead, the game’s main ability is Flipping. The player reverses gravity only for himself, allowing him to traverse puzzles. Other abilities include: Miasma (becoming a fog-like form), Haunting, Possessing animals, Guiding (Leading other spirits and using their asisstance), and more to be revealed later.
Puzzles
Ten mementos are placed throughout each world, hard to reach or hidden. Three of the mementos in each world are hidden behind harder, more traditional puzzles. This could mean anything from a jigsaw puzzle to riddles, but each is unique to the memento it holds. The clock puzzle below holds the “Dad’s Pocket Watch” memento.
We want to consistently surprise you with the quality of Ethereal’s art. We are striving for smooth, high resolution animations, but ultimately our focus is on excellent art design and unique ideas.
